grade my essay?

[nickelbackfan]

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Hey guys I would really appreciate some feedback on my essay. The prompt is bellow.


Education comes not from books but from practical experience


Education that comes from the practical experiences one undergoes as opposed to education through literature can be more apparent and useful. As with most cases, this general rule is not an absolute one. There are plenty of cases in which learning through books is the better approach. For example, students in their first two years of medical school undergo a rigorous curriculum of learning the "hard" science theories of medicine. Clearly, a future doctor needs to have these theories ingrained in their knowledge because without this knowledge, one cannot simply practice medicine and the results can be detrimental. For example, if there is an emergency doctor who did not learn the protocol to treat a patient for a particular situation, then that patient can suffer. In this case, learning not only comes from literature...it is a necessity.

Conversely, there are situations in which learning comes experience. Lets suppose that the same ER doctor is dealing with a drug seeking patient. While some "books" may try to teach the doctor the appropriate way to deal with this situation, previous experience attributes more because the doctor can use his past experiences to identify such things as if the patient is lying or has a drug problem. The doctor can learn to read the face of the patient to certain responses to reach the conclusions needed to proceed in the approiate manner. It is very difficult to develop such skills solely from books.

There can be cases when knowledge gained from practical experience and knowledge gained from books contribute equally. If the ER doctor recieves a patient with a problem that requires investigating, the doctor must use his practical experience to guide his invesitgation quickly. The practical experience allows the doctor know what to look for while the education from books allows the doctor to practice medicine by knowing which drugs to administer to induce a known effect. If the doctor doesn't know what to look for (lacks the knowledge from practical experience), his efforts in treating the patient are unguided and the patient will suffer. Also, if the doctor doesn't certianly know the effects of the drugs on the patient, a wrong drug could be administered of side affects can occur unbenotes to the doctor, also providing a negative impact to the patient.

The case as to if books or practice experience provide "better" education rests solely on the contents to which that knowledge is needed. As shown, there are cases when one is needed over the other, but there are also cases in which they are needed equally.

 

[dropper]

1) Your examples do not provide a clear distinction between books and practical experience.

i.e. "...emergency doctor who did not learn the protocol to treat a patient for a particular situation..." It can easily be argued that "learning the protocol" can be a result of practical experience, not books.

i.e. "The practical experience allows the doctor know what to look for while the education from books allows the doctor to practice medicine by knowing which drugs to administer to induce a known effect." Same exact thing here. A book can educate the doctor about the common telltale signs of "a problem that requires investigating" (which is vague and poorly worded btdubs). And the second part of this claim, one can argue that book knowledge could lead the doctor to administer a drug, that, according to the book, correctly induces a known effect - yet through a lack of practical experience he/she might have missed an uncommon telltale sign indicating a unique condition and administered a drug that interacts adversely with the patients unique condition.

I'm not saying your arguments are incorrect. I'm just saying they can be easily countered and have lots of holes. This is main problem #1.

2) Your essay as a whole is very vague. One example: "As with most cases, this general rule is not an absolute one." This is a very bold statement that you're taking a stand on, and you clearly don't have the time allotted for this essay to give examples of "most cases." This hurts your credibility, and makes you sound like the author of a VR passage. Be much more specific with your sentences; make it a habit not to take a stand with a general statement that you will not back up with hard, solid, specific evidence. In this scenario, being that you have 30 minutes per essay, it would be a much better idea to completely avoid general, vague, non-specific sentences altogether. Focus on your examples and evidence pertaining to them.

The following are secondary comments.

3) You are overusing quotation marks. Putting quotes around "hard" and "books" (especially books, are you suggesting that they're not really books?) greatly weakens the only properly used quotations, around "better" in your last paragraph.

4) Try not to put anything in parenthesis. Try not to use "...". Always pick the formal tone over the casual tone. Remember that this is the MCAT, and not a forum post (or is it?)

Good luck

 

[Medical Muse]

Your need to do a couple of things to improve your essay. First, you need more examples and more specific examples. You really only focused on being an emergency room doc, and showed both sides of the argument. Give some more examples, ideally outside of medicine. Second, don't start off disagreeing with the prompts. Support it and then oppose it. It gets confusing if you do it the other way. Third, try and come up with your conclusion before your start writing. I don't know exactly what your conclusion in. For this prompt, I would have gone with something like "the level of education determines whether it comes from books or practical experience. If we are talking about an average or general education, then it comes best from books. To thoroughly master education, however, requires practical experience."